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Rummage   Listen
noun
Rummage  n.  
1.
(Naut.) A place or room for the stowage of cargo in a ship; also, the act of stowing cargo; the pulling and moving about of packages incident to close stowage; formerly written romage. (Obs.)
2.
A searching carefully by looking into every corner, and by turning things over. "He has made such a general rummage and reform in the office of matrimony."
Rummage sale, a clearance sale of unclaimed goods in a public store, or of odds and ends which have accumulated in a shop.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Rummage" Quotes from Famous Books



... his time to the committee. He turned the office and its force over to them; gave them the freedom of the account books and the safe. Let them rummage the warehouse and its system. Explained his engineering mistakes to them. Went over and over the details of the flood, of the weathering abutments, of the concrete that did not come up to specifications, ...
— Still Jim • Honore Willsie Morrow

... send my star bedquilt! They always have things of that kind at Cattle Show;" and Jill began to rummage in the closet for the pride of her heart, burning to display ...
— Jack and Jill • Louisa May Alcott

... though he was a man of wide and not very edifying experience. The tactics which had started his friendship with Joanna he had learned at the shorthand and typewriting college where he had learned his clerking job—and they had brought him a rummage of adventures, some transient, some sticky, some dirty, some glamorous. He had met girls of a fairly good class—for his looks caused much to be forgiven him—as well as the typists, shop-girls and waitresses of his more usual association. ...
— Joanna Godden • Sheila Kaye-Smith

... returning from the wars, has found that his heart's treasures have gone to rummage sales, and—you know the story of the man who bought his dress suit ...
— 'Oh, Well, You Know How Women Are!' AND 'Isn't That Just Like a Man!' • Irvin Shrewsbury Cobb

... said Uncle Billy confidently. "And I've been thinking about it, and kinder seeing myself thar all day. It's mighty queer!" He got up and began to rummage among some torn and coverless ...
— Stories in Light and Shadow • Bret Harte

... was given at the Washington College of Law. From 1916 the association assisted the National Association at its new headquarters, 1626 Rhode Island Avenue, by serving tea afternoons and raising money through bazaars, rummage sales, card parties, etc. ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume VI • Various

... like to rummage out that closet," said William one day to his cousin, when he had chanced to have a peep into his receptacle for what he ...
— The Young Lord and Other Tales - to which is added Victorine Durocher • Camilla Toulmin

... much in the great field of astronomy that is discouraging to the savant who hasn't the time nor means to rummage around through the heavens. At times I am almost hopeless, and feel like saying to the great yearnful, hungry world: "Grope on forever. Do not ask me for another scientific fact. Find it out yourself. Hunt up your own new-laid ...
— Remarks • Bill Nye

... She began to rummage round among the old lady's scanty treasures, and at length, much to her joy, happened upon the letter, laid carefully away in one corner of the chest. She knew it was the one she sought, from the recent postmark, ...
— Paul Prescott's Charge • Horatio Alger

... boys entered the barabbara to look after their rifles, and began to rummage among the piles of klipsies which they found thrown back under the eaves, they unearthed a broken cast-iron frying-pan and, what caused them even greater delight, a little, dirty sack, which contained perhaps three or four pounds of salt. They sat ...
— The Young Alaskans • Emerson Hough

... rummage in her pocket for her spectacles. But Oliver's patience was not proof against this new trial; and yielding to his first impulse, he sprang into ...
— Oliver Twist • Charles Dickens

... our Pope controversy go on? and the pamphlet? It is impossible to write any news: the Austrian scoundrels rummage all letters. ...
— Life of Lord Byron, With His Letters And Journals, Vol. 5 (of 6) • (Lord Byron) George Gordon Byron

... ever seen, Point-painted red; and seizing thereupon Pushed through an open casement down, leaned on it, Leapt in a semicircle, and lit on earth; Then hand at ear, and harkening from what side The blindfold rummage buried in the walls Might echo, ran the counter path, and found His charger, mounted on him and away. An arrow whizzed to the right, one to the left, One overhead; and Pellam's feeble cry 'Stay, stay him! he defileth heavenly things With earthly ...
— Idylls of the King • Alfred, Lord Tennyson

... Aun' Sheba. Here, Sam, make the kitchen fire before you do anything else. Now we must rummage and see ...
— The Earth Trembled • E.P. Roe

... easy to guess that those light steps were a woman's. Edoardo turned towards a table, as if to look for some papers, saying to himself: 'I am lost.' And Sophia knelt down by the trunk that contained her clothes, pretending to rummage for something in it, while she wiped away her tears, and suppressed ...
— Tales for Young and Old • Various

... of fuse, but it happened that I had never seen any in my life. I remember I thought it must be white and soft like the string of a firecracker. So I began to rummage through all the drawers and boxes for fuse. One of the first things I came across was a coil of black, stiff, tarry string, but I threw it to one side and went on looking for fuse. After I had hunted half an hour and found none, I gave up. As I stood there thinking, a good deal discouraged, ...
— Track's End • Hayden Carruth

... beautiful little inlaid chest, such as ladies have for their combs, brushes, ointment-pots and similar toilet articles. From their condition I conjectured that the bandits had just commenced to rummage the coach when the unexpected approach of the mounted constables, whose small numbers they most likely did not realize, ...
— Andivius Hedulio • Edward Lucas White

... A swift rummage of the dusty closet set them all sneezing, but they triumphantly brought forth an armful of defunct trousers and carried them up to their room. For the next fifteen minutes such giggles and exclamations and shrieks of laughter ...
— Chicken Little Jane on the Big John • Lily Munsell Ritchie

... odd heaps of old papers, this gentleman, when he comes into the property, naturally begins to rummage, don't you see?" said ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens

... Land's End to Portland Bill, Portsmouth tenders from Portland Bill to Beachy Head, and Folkestone and Dover tenders from Beachy Head to the North Foreland, thus completing the encircling chain. Nor was Ireland forgotten in the general sea-rummage. As a converging point for the great overseas trade-routes it was of prime importance, and tenders hailing from Belfast, Dublin, Waterford, Cork and Limerick, or making those places their chief ports of call, exercised unceasing vigilance over ...
— The Press-Gang Afloat and Ashore • John R. Hutchinson

... trace of a human being in sight; the piano shut tight, the bookcases shut and locked, the engravings locked up, all the drawers and closets locked. Why, if I want to take a fellow into the library, in the first place it smells like a vault, and I have to unbarricade windows, and unlock and rummage for half an hour before I can get at anything; and I know Aunt Zeruah is standing tiptoe at the door, ready to whip everything back and lock up again. A fellow can't be social, or take any comfort in showing his ...
— Household Papers and Stories • Harriet Beecher Stowe

... is always something more to be said, and it is always so difficult to turn up the splice neatly at the edges. On this account there are regular models for ending a book or a Poem, as there are for beginning one; but, for my part, I think the best way of ending a book is to rummage about among one's manuscripts till one has found a bit of Fine Writing (no matter upon what subject), to lead up the last paragraphs by no matter what violent shocks to the thing it deals with, to introduce a row of ...
— The Path to Rome • Hilaire Belloc

... stories of conversions and miracles, and then perhaps we go into the Sacristy and have a reverent little poke out of relics. Fancy a great carved cupboard in a vaulted chamber full of most precious things (the box which the Holy Virgin's veil used to be kept in, to begin with), and leave to rummage in it at will! Things that are only shown twice in the year or so, with fumigation! all the congregation on their knees; and the sacristan and I having a great heap of them on the table at once, like ...
— Hortus Inclusus - Messages from the Wood to the Garden, Sent in Happy Days - to the Sister Ladies of the Thwaite, Coniston • John Ruskin

... make men bad, as bad men make many laws; yet under thy regimen they take us from the bosom of the nurse, turn the meat about upon the platter, pull the bed-clothes off, make us sleep when we would wake, and wake when we would sleep, and never cease to rummage and twitch us, until they see us safe landed at the grave. We can do nothing (but be poisoned) with impunity. What is worst of all, we must marry certain relatives and connexions, be they distorted, blear-eyed, toothless, carbuncled, with hair (if any) ...
— Imaginary Conversations and Poems - A Selection • Walter Savage Landor

... to rummage through the one bookshelf in the study which held his small but usable collection of books and pamphlets on the Negro, and see what he might find. And, as ...
— John Wesley, Jr. - The Story of an Experiment • Dan B. Brummitt

... all rummage in attics and trunk-rooms for those disreputable looking articles of wearing apparel dear to all sportsmen; oil soaked boots, water soaked and sun bleached woolen, corduroy, leather or canvas garments and hats, each looking ...
— Etiquette • Emily Post

... having been in the ship on a previous voyage, he manages to work a passage through the hold to the after part right under the cuddy; and from there my gentleman, if you please, makes his way on deck again through the hatchway in the captain's cabin, not forgetting to rummage the steward's pantry for ...
— The Island Treasure • John Conroy Hutcheson

... your two hands—or at least with one—pushed the said weasel into your burrow. Which thing he could never have done without your help, and if you had resisted but ever so little he would never have effected his purpose. If his weasel was allowed to rummage in your burrow, that is not his fault, ...
— One Hundred Merrie And Delightsome Stories - Les Cent Nouvelles Nouvelles • Various

... king could have been so gluttonous as to stir the stinking filthy flesh, or rummage in the foul back of a bird ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")

... Bob and Scattergood examined the documents and memoranda and receipts and accounts of Solon Beatty, but no will, no minute reference to Farley Curtis, was discovered. They went again to Solon's house to question Mary and to rummage there with the hope of falling upon some such hiding place as the queer old man might have chosen as the safe depository of his will. Mary Beatty was not helpful; middle-aged, with wasted youth behind her; she was even resentful that her meticulous housekeeping ...
— Scattergood Baines • Clarence Budington Kelland

... window, on the north, with a bit of green stuff for a curtain; its only furniture was a miserable wooden bed drawn into the middle of the room. Licquet and the commissary examined the partitions and had them sounded. Soyer allowed them to rummage in all the corners, then, when they had given up all idea of finding anything themselves, he went up to the bed, put his hand under the mattress and removed a nail. They immediately heard the fall of a weight behind the wall, which opened, disclosing a chamber large enough to hold ...
— The House of the Combrays • G. le Notre

... orders, messmates, We'll plunder, burn, and sink, Then, France, have at your first-rates, For Britons never shrink: We'll rummage all we fancy, We'll bring them in by scores, And Moll and Kate and Nancy Shall roll ...
— Political and Literary essays, 1908-1913 • Evelyn Baring

... upstairs to her grandmother's room, which was over the little room where Tozer sat, and from which she could already hear sounds of conversation rapidly rising in tone, and the noise of opening and shutting drawers, and a general rummage. Phoebe never knew what she said to the kind old woman, who kissed and wept over her, exulting in ...
— Phoebe, Junior • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant

... merrily; "it is perfectly fresh, and I like the shape. Just wait till you see it trimmed, Miss Bean. May I rummage a little among your drawers? I will not toss ...
— Queen Hildegarde • Laura Elizabeth Howe Richards

... forced and out of character, that it did not escape even the notice of her domestics. Some, however, went immediately to the place, and after much hesitation lifted up the lid, when lo! a bundle of straw was the reward of their curiosity. By degrees they began to rummage farther into the contents; but the whole interior was filled with this rare and curious commodity. They could hardly believe their eyes; and Dick, especially, shook his head, and looked as though he knew or suspected more than he durst tell; a common expedient with those whose mountain hath ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby

... did not resent the action, but fell against the passage wall sobbing and murmuring, "My precious, my chickabiddy!" while Cuckoo banged the hall door and went out into the night. Then the landlady, moved by a sacred impulse of pardon, bolted down to her kitchen and began to rummage enthusiastically in her larder. She knew Cuckoo had been near to starving, and had supported the knowledge with great equanimity while this prodigal daughter chose to wander in wicked ways of idleness. But now she killed the fatted calf with trembling hands, and made haste to set out ...
— Flames • Robert Smythe Hichens

... you. Without saying anything, go and rummage through my basket, and then through the Paphlagonian's, and see what is in them; that's the ...
— The Eleven Comedies - Vol. I • Aristophanes et al

... any hope of that," said Jack. "In ten minutes we shall be prisoners. By-the-bye, I turned all my gold into this chest. If the Frenchmen find it they'll keep it, so I'll fill my pockets again, and they may not think of looking into them, but they're sure to rummage the chest." ...
— From Powder Monkey to Admiral - A Story of Naval Adventure • W.H.G. Kingston

... morning we unpacked our trunks, and had everything on the floor where we could see it, after the fashion with men. Captain Febiger's baby boy came in to help us rummage in the heaps of canvas clothes, ammunition, and what not besides, finally selecting for his amusement a loaded Colt's revolver and a freshly honed razor. We were terrorized by the possibilities of the combination. Our ...
— Crooked Trails • Frederic Remington

... you nor I, nor all the critics in the world, have any trustworthy data that would give them the right to reject such literature. I do not know which are right: Homer, Shakespeare, Lopez da Vega, and, speaking generally, the ancients who were not afraid to rummage in the "muck heap," but were morally far more stable than we are, or the modern writers, priggish on paper but coldly cynical in their souls and in life. I do not know which has bad taste—the Greeks ...
— Letters of Anton Chekhov • Anton Chekhov

... to rummage a little. Papers belonging to his father—an endless series of them; some in tin boxes marked with the names of various companies, mining and other; some in leather cases, reminiscent of politics, and labelled "Parliamentary" or ...
— Marriage a la mode • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... for the repayment of the loan, he is at that moment in possession of a document which he is prepared to deposit with the lender,—a document calculated, he cannot doubt, to remove any feeling of anxiety which the moat prudent person could experience in the circumstances. After a rummage in his pockets, which develops miscellaneous and varied, but as yet by no means valuable, possessions, he at last comes to the object of his search, a crumpled bit of paper, and spread it out,—a fifty-pound bank-note! All sums of money were measured by him through the common standard of immediate ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. September, 1863, No. LXXI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various

... that he was talking about M. de Gery, the Nabob's young secretary, who often comes to the Territoriale, where he does nothing but rummage among the books. Very polite certainly, but a very proud youngster who does not know how to make the most of himself. There was nothing but a chorus of maledictions against him around the table. Even M. Louis delivered himself on that ...
— The Nabob, Volume 1 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet

... here and there clothing and oddments which, if they did not wear, they knew how to dispose of advantageously. What extremes of ways and means such people must be acquainted with! no ditch was too low to rummage in, no rat-hole too hidden to be ravaged; a gate represented something to be climbed over: an open door was an invitation, a locked one a challenge. They could dodge under the fences of the law and climb the barbed wire of morality with equal impunity, and the utmost rigor ...
— Mary, Mary • James Stephens

... disperse ourselves over the house, in order to do anything. I will rummage the first story: you, Fred, will explore the second, and our new friend here can try his luck in the third. As for you, Davis, you must descend into the kitchen, and collect what silver ware and plate you can find. So ...
— City Crimes - or Life in New York and Boston • Greenhorn

... the French spoliation claims, an aggregate is reached that is indeed startling. In the defense of all these cases the Government is at great disadvantage. The claimants have preserved their evidence, whereas the agents of the Government are sent into the field to rummage for what they can find. This difficulty is peculiarly great where the fact to be established is the disloyalty of the claimant during the war. If this great threat against our revenues is to have no other check, certainly Congress should supply the ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents, Volume IX. • Benjamin Harrison

... stood in one corner. There were shelves on the wall, fitted with glass doors which protected jars and bottles. On a large table lay an outfit for chemical experiments, and on another some yellow flowers half buried in green leaves. In the window was a modern desk, and Dick at once began to rummage among the few papers in the pigeon-holes. There was nothing, however, which seemed to bear upon our affairs, with the exception of a telegraph form, which I seized upon. It was dated June first, and had been sent ...
— The Car of Destiny • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson

... could tell? Lies are easily told when the proofs of the lie have to be sought beyond the frontiers. And it was her daughter who was going to fall in love with an insipid fop who only coveted her millions. That she should see such a man enter her family, steal Micheline's love from her, and rummage her strongbox! In a moment she vowed mortal hatred against Panine, and resolved to do all she could to prevent the ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet

... to rummage about. "What are these? Old exercise-books, as I live! Oh, do look here; isn't this wonderful? Here's a translation: 'Horace, Liber I, Satire 5.' How brown the ink is. Aricia a little town on the way ...
— Austin and His Friends • Frederic H. Balfour

... had to be found, drawers or boxes half-turned out and left unfinished; in short, all the confusion and vacancies resulting from plans for order never carried out. The lawyer's private room, especially disordered by this incessant rummage, bore witness to his unresting pace, the hurry of a man overwhelmed with business, hunted by contradictory necessities. The bookcase looked as if it had been sacked; there were books scattered over everything, some piled up ...
— The Commission in Lunacy • Honore de Balzac

... around her, threw herself heavily and sullenly on the bed. But inaction was not a characteristic of Minty's emotion; she presently rose again, and, taking an old work-box from her trunk, began to rummage in its recesses. It was an old shell-incrusted affair, and the apparent receptacle of such cheap odds and ends of jewelry as she possessed; a hideous cameo ring, the property of the late Mrs. Sharpe, was missing. She again rapidly explored the contents ...
— A Phyllis of the Sierras • Bret Harte

... feels too much one's helplessness to pluck up one's heart and spirit. One works all the same, even if only turning napkin rings, as you say: and, as for me, while serving the public, I think about it as little as possible. Le Temps has done me the service of making me rummage in my waste basket. I find there the prophecies that the conscience of each of us has inspired in him, and these little returns to the past ought to give us courage; but it is not at all so. The lessons of experience are of no use ...
— The George Sand-Gustave Flaubert Letters • George Sand, Gustave Flaubert

... looking at the plank with a knowing frown. A rummage through the old corner cupboard where the provisions were kept provided him with a wide strip of bacon rind, such as Uncle Billy used to rub on his saw. John Jay carried it out of doors and carefully ...
— Ole Mammy's Torment • Annie Fellows Johnston

... ferocious animals, male and female, scattered over the country, dark, livid, and all scorched by the sun, affixed to the soil which they rummage and throw up with indomitable pertinacity; they have a sort of articulate voice, and, when they rise to their feet, they show a human face; they are, in fact, men. At night they withdraw to the caves, ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume V. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot

... money for to fill it up again, upon the understanding to come back when it was ready; and then we went to Burlington, and spent the rest in poshays like two gentlemen; and when we was down upon our stumps at last, for only one leg there is between us both, your honor, my boy he ups and makes a rummage in his traps; which the Lord he put it into his mind to do so, when he were gone a few good sheets in the wind; and there sure enough he finds five good guineas in the tail of an old hankercher he had clean forgotten; and he says, 'Now, father, you take care of them. Let us go and see the capital, ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore

... the keys. I'm the proper person to put things in order if you did not replace them properly. You are just making an excuse to rummage yourself. My motive for inspecting is very different ...
— He Fell in Love with His Wife • Edward P. Roe

... this was the result of a single evening's interview? The self-reproach was unjustly bestowed; but with that we have nothing to do. She made herself very miserable; and at last went down with a heavy heart to go on with Dante, and rummage up words in the dictionary. All the time she seemed to Miss Monro to be plodding on with her Italian more diligently and sedately than usual, she was planning in her own mind to speak to her father as soon as he returned (and he had said that he should not be late), and beg him to undo ...
— A Dark Night's Work • Elizabeth Gaskell

... though, that Mr. St. Claire should ask to leave his keys with me? One would suppose he'd trust his cousin to rummage his goods and chattels ...
— Darkness and Daylight • Mary J. Holmes

... my dear fellow, he wrote, or rather, indited me an epistle, or, I should say, indictment, in his most Roman manner which—but egad! I'll read it to you, I have it here somewhere." And the Viscount began to rummage among the bedclothes, to feel and fumble under pillow and bolster, and eventually dragged forth a woefully crumpled document which he smoothed out upon his knees, and from which he began ...
— The Amateur Gentleman • Jeffery Farnol et al

... get personal," he said curtly. Sitting down at a desk, he began to rummage with some papers and, turning impatiently ...
— The Third Degree - A Narrative of Metropolitan Life • Charles Klein and Arthur Hornblow

... himself, Rufus began to rummage the pockets of his frockcoat—a long, loose, and dingy garment which had become friendly and comfortable to him by dint of ancient use. Producing a handful of correspondence, he selected the largest envelope of all; shook out on the table several smaller letters ...
— The Fallen Leaves • Wilkie Collins

... was urged that the arguments for open shelves were all arguments for anarchy; that the readers who want to rummage about for what they want lack proper discipline of the mind; that the number of books lost under it has been very large; that librarians are custodians and conservers, as well as dispensers of books; that all books misplaced are practically lost ...
— A Book for All Readers • Ainsworth Rand Spofford

... evening they pitched their camp down in the plain fields amidst tall elmtrees, and had their banners still flying over the tents to warn all comers of what they were. But the next morning the chapmen and their folk were up betimes to rummage their loads, and to array their wares for the market; and they gat not to the road before mid-morning. Meantime of their riding Ralph had more talk with Bull, who said to him: "Fair lord, I rede thee when thou art in the market of Cheaping Knowe, bid master ...
— The Well at the World's End • William Morris

... to garret. The night was even worse. As soon as the lights were out, these untiring nibblers set to work. And everywhere, in the ceilings, in the floors, in the cupboards, at the doors, there was a chase and a rummage, and so furious a noise of gimlets, pincers, and saws, that a deaf man could not have ...
— The Red Fairy Book • Various

... thither daily. It was Miss Briggs and little Rawdon, whose business it was to see to the inward renovation of Sir Pitt's house, to superintend the female band engaged in stitching the blinds and hangings, to poke and rummage in the drawers and cupboards crammed with the dirty relics and congregated trumperies of a couple of generations of Lady Crawleys, and to take inventories of the china, the glass, and other properties in ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray

... Woven by the Moon's white virgins, Fashioned by the Sun's bright daughters Fitting raiment for Wellamo! "Ahto, king of all the waters, Ruler of a thousand grottoes, Take a pole of seven fathoms, Search with this the deepest waters, Rummage well the lowest bottoms; Stir up all the reeds and sea-weeds, Hither drive a school of gray-pike, Drive them to our magic fish-net, From the haunts in pike abounding, From the caverns, and the trout-holes, From the whirlpools of the deep-sea, From the bottomless abysses, ...
— The Kalevala (complete) • John Martin Crawford, trans.

... advancing with kindly outstretched hands—"what is the meaning of this?"—She looked at the miscellaneous turn-out of cupboards and chests of drawers, at the display of garments not usually submitted to the public gaze. "Are you preparing a rummage sale or are you—but no, surely not!—are you packing? I cannot describe how anxious I am to hear what has occurred. My sister, Mrs. Cowden, was extremely adverse to my facing the bad weather; but, I felt your note ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet

... George continued to rummage among the books. He acted like a madman. "What's this, what's this?" he kept on saying, turning them over and over. I thought it beneath my dignity to answer. I just stared at ...
— Secret Memoirs: The Story of Louise, Crown Princess • Henry W. Fischer

... Salemina that I wished I had ordered the car at ten thirty instead of eleven; but I made up my mind, as we ladies went to the drawing-room for coffee, that I would seize the first favourable opportunity to explore the secret chambers of Dr. La Touche's being. I love to rummage in out-of-the-way corners of people's brains and hearts if they will let me. I like to follow a courteous host through the public corridors of his house and come upon a little chamber closed to the casual visitor. If I have known him long enough I put my hand on the latch and smile inquiringly. He ...
— Penelope's Irish Experiences • Kate Douglas Wiggin

... on Allah's aid and conjure thee by the oath of divorce saying, 'Thou must assuredly come,' do thou reply, 'By Allah, I will not go, unless the Chief also go with me.' Then, as soon as thou comest to the house, begin by searching the terrace-roofs; then rummage the closets and cabinets; and if thou find naught, humble thyself before the Kazi and be abject and feign thyself subjected, and after stand at the door and look as if thou soughtest a place wherein to make water,[FN35] because there ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton

... nice white snow all over poor cook, till her face looked as if she was ready to be shaved. His own face looked the same, for he had eaten all he wanted while the pudding stood cooling in the pantry. He had crept out of a window in the closet, and had a fine rummage among ...
— The Louisa Alcott Reader - A Supplementary Reader for the Fourth Year of School • Louisa M. Alcott

... book on the bed and walked to the table. She had experienced her share of battle for the day. "No children to rummage," passed through her brain. It was the final week of hot, dry August weather, while a point had been made of calling her attention to the extra cover when the room had been shown her. She might have said these things, but why say them? The shamed face of the ...
— A Daughter of the Land • Gene Stratton-Porter

... Hunter, his future wife. David Hunter, whose devout and intelligent character procured for him great respect, died at Blantyre in 1834, at the age of eighty-seven. He was a great favorite with his grandchildren, to whom he was always kind, and whom he allowed to rummage freely among his books, of which he had ...
— The Personal Life Of David Livingstone • William Garden Blaikie

... I rummage the town in search of adventure; climb one hundred and fifty steep steps, and find the highlands at the top, green, pastoral and reposeful. Pleasant homes are scattered about; a few animals feed leisurely in the grassy streets. One diminutive Episcopal chapel comes near to being pretty, ...
— Over the Rocky Mountains to Alaska • Charles Warren Stoddard

... in all its terrible reality, wrapped in its authentic habiliments. Dr. Hickson of the psychopathic laboratory would give these curious rainy day phantasts identities as weird as the volumes they caress. But the old book store clerk is more kind. He lets them rummage. Before the rain ends they will buy "The Cradle of the Giants," "The Key to Satanism," Cornelius Agrippa's "Natural Magic," "The Astral Chord," "Occultism and Its Usages." They will buy books by Jacob Boehme, William Law, Sadler, Hyslop, ...
— A Thousand and One Afternoons in Chicago • Ben Hecht

... lengthened rummage in a voluminous pocket, and the production of several articles irrelevant to the occasion—a thimble, a bit of ginger, and part of a tract—Mrs Gray brought to light a piece of paper, on which ...
— Zoe • Evelyn Whitaker

... spirit-power and spirit-speech, And thus the bitter task forego Of saying the things I do not know,— That I may detect the inmost force Which binds the world, and guides its course; Its germs, productive powers explore, And rummage in ...
— Faust • Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

... at me in surprise, growled something through his teeth, and began to rummage in his portmanteau. Out he drew a writing-book and threw it contemptuously on the ground; then a second—a third—a tenth shared the same fate. There was something childish in his vexation, and it struck me ...
— A Hero of Our Time • M. Y. Lermontov

... and she began to form in her mind the first words of the letter she meant to write to Harney. She wanted to write it at once, and with feverish hands she began to rummage in her drawer for a sheet of letter paper. But there was none left; she must go downstairs to get it. She had a superstitious feeling that the letter must be written on the instant, that setting down her secret in words would bring her reassurance and safety; and taking up ...
— Summer • Edith Wharton

... last minutes of my stay I felt a desire, one I had never known before, to rummage in the old Louis XV bookcase that stood near my bed. There among the volumes in their century-old bindings, where the worms, never disturbed, slowly bored their galleries, I found a book made of thick rough old-fashioned paper, and this I opened carelessly. . ...
— The Story of a Child • Pierre Loti

... green woodpecker. "The yaffil laughed loud."—See Peacock at Home. Smellfox, anemone. Dead men's fingers, orchis. Granny's night-cap, water avens. Jacob's ladder, Solomon's seal. Lady's slipper, Prunella vulgaris. Poppy, foxglove. To routle, to rummage (like a pig in straw). To terrify, to worry or disturb. "Poor old man, the children did terrify him so, he is gone into the Union." Wind-list, white streak of faint cloud across a blue sky, showing the direction of the wind. Shuffler, man employed ...
— John Keble's Parishes • Charlotte M Yonge

... even when thy mouth says, 'Give food in addition to water, that I may reach my goal in safety,' they are deaf and will not hear. They say not yes to thy words. The iron-workers enter into the smithy; they rummage in the workshops of the carpenters; the handicraftsmen and saddlers are at hand; they do whatever thou requirest. They put together thy chariot; they put aside the parts of it that are made useless; thy spokes are faconne quite new; thy wheels are put on; they put the courroies ...
— Patriarchal Palestine • Archibald Henry Sayce

... to use by-products; when science found that colors could be made out of coaltar, she made her greatest and perhaps her only claim on the real respect of the human soul. Now the aim of the good woman is to use the by-products, or, in other words, to rummage ...
— What's Wrong With The World • G.K. Chesterton

... down to the strand again, where she stopped to rummage in her bag. Finally she fished out a little wooden shoe, which she placed on a stone where it could be plainly seen. Then she ran to little ...
— The Wonderful Adventures of Nils • Selma Lagerlof

... Rosenthal shall rummage the German quarter and even go through Williamsburgh and Hoboken. The end justifies any amount of labor that can ...
— A Strange Disappearance • Anna Katharine Green

... outside, returning in a few moments, smiling triumphantly. "There are tracks coming in, but there ain't none going away. He's here. If you don't lead us to him we'll shore have to rummage around an' poke him out for ...
— Bar-20 Days • Clarence E. Mulford

... his spectacles, and once more started to rummage in the cupboard, and to smother his guest with dust as he untied successive packages of papers—so much so that his victim burst out sneezing. Finally he extracted a much-scribbled document in which the names of the ...
— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol

... seems to be a perpetual hunt after curios. We sit down on the mattings, in the antique-sellers' little booths, taking a cup of tea with the salesmen, and rummage with our own hands in the cupboards and chests, where many a fantastic piece of old rubbish is huddled away. The bargaining, much discussed, is laughingly carried on for several days, as if we were trying to ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet

... of Pa! he will not let me stop Just to run in and rummage some milliner's shop; And my debut in Paris, I blush to think on it, Must now, DOLL, be made in a hideous low bonnet. But Paris, dear Paris!—oh, there will be joy, And romance, and high bonnets, ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al

... out as it was. That is not to say that I recommend every man to have a magic lantern in his cellar, or the promiscuous purchase of all sorts of useless things as though the world were a kind of providential rummage sale. I should rather say that no effort to in any way add to one's stock of knowledge is likely to come amiss in this world of changes and emergencies, and that Providence has a way of ranging itself on the side of the man with the strongest ...
— The Making of an American • Jacob A. Riis

... we had the Scilly Islands over the taffrail, and Mr. Poke took command of the vessel in good earnest. Coming down channel, he had done little more than rummage about in the cabin, examine the lockers, and make his foot acquainted with the anatomy of poor Bob, as the cabin-boy was called; who, judging from the amount of the captain's practice, was admirably well suited for his station, in the great ...
— The Monikins • J. Fenimore Cooper

... A rummage sale of toys added quite a large sum to the general fund. There was a 5-cent table, a 10-cent table and a ...
— The White Christmas and other Merry Christmas Plays • Walter Ben Hare

... a warren where rabbits abounded. Placing some bran and lettuce in the pouch, he stretched himself out and lay as if dead. His plan was to wait until some young rabbit, unlearned in worldly wisdom, should come and rummage in the pouch for the eatables which he had ...
— Old-Time Stories • Charles Perrault

... everything they could lay hands on. Their attics were museums where were horded every sort of object against the time when it might be needed. But do we follow their example? No, indeed! In fact, we go to the other extreme and hurry out of the house, either to a junk dealer or a rummage sale, everything we cannot find immediate use for. To a certain extent our mode of living has forced us to this course. Most of us reside in cramped city quarters where there are no spacious attics in which to garner up articles ...
— Carl and the Cotton Gin • Sara Ware Bassett

... is curious. I was just telling the young ones about an adventure of my youth, when Gonsales Zarco touched there on his way to Madeira. With your good permission I will leave you for a few minutes and rummage in an old sea-chest, and see whether there is any flotsam in it to ...
— Days of the Discoverers • L. Lamprey

... Abraham went to bed, he saw her opening an escrutoire with a knife, which she said she could at any time do. Abraham at first forbid her, but she by her endearments, quickly brought him over to her party, insomuch that after having lain with her, he consented to rummage the escrutoire. In it they found diamond rings and other jewels to a very great value. The wench said to him, holding up a fine diamond ring, Abraham, you might take this, and it would prove the making of us both. But the fellow ...
— Lives Of The Most Remarkable Criminals Who have been Condemned and Executed for Murder, the Highway, Housebreaking, Street Robberies, Coining or other offences • Arthur L. Hayward

... began to bustle about. He added fuel to the flame, set on a kettle, dragged blankets out of cupboards and piled them upon his mother. Then he found a pillow-case, aired it until the thing scorched, inserted a pillow, and placed it beneath the patient's head. His subsequent step was to rummage dried marshmallows out of a drawer, concoct a sort of dismal brew, and inflict a cup upon the sick woman. Doctor Parsons still tarrying, Will went out of doors, knocked a brick from the fowl-house ...
— Children of the Mist • Eden Phillpotts

... of the boat at that moment attracted attention. It was John Mitford, who, having taken off his own coat, and wrapped it round his shivering wife, had gone to the bow to rummage in a locker there, and had found a tarpaulin. Massey had overhauled the locker for food before him, but the tarpaulin had been so well folded, and laid so flat in the bottom, that it ...
— The Coxswain's Bride - also, Jack Frost and Sons; and, A Double Rescue • R.M. Ballantyne

... fury was overshadowed. A nauseous curiosity made them rummage all the dressing-rooms, all the recesses. Returned convicts thrust their arms into the beds in which princesses had slept, and rolled themselves on the top of them, to console themselves for not being able to embrace their owners. Others, with ...
— Sentimental Education, Volume II - The History of a Young Man • Gustave Flaubert

... Bea said, easily. "Of course Steve's a wonderful old dear and all that—I wish I had asked him for the moon. I do believe he'd have gotten an option on it." She laughed and reached over to a bonbon dish to rummage for a favourite flavour. She selected a fat, deadly looking affair, only to bite into it and discover her mistake. She tossed it on the floor so that Monster could creep out of her silk-lined basket ...
— The Gorgeous Girl • Nalbro Bartley

... with some of his friends. The entrance-hall was full of things—bags, portmanteaus, and leather articles of every sort. The boxes had to be got out of their covers, and that was infinite trouble; and of luggage and of rummage there was no end. At intervals, moreover, there were violent showers, giving rise to much inconvenience. Ottilie encountered all this confusion with the easiest equanimity, and her happy talent showed in its fairest light. In a very little time she had brought things to order, and disposed of ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. II • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke

... even a bit of corn bread! Try, my old cock, and rummage up a crust or two, for hung beef is devilish tight work for the teeth, without a little bread of some ...
— The Canadian Brothers - or The Prophecy Fulfilled • John Richardson

... assortments ever seen of new things in summer fashions. These headless dummies of the Bowery have a very ghastly look at night. They suggest a procession of the ghosts of Bluebeard's wives, who, true to their instincts while in life, nightly revisit the "ladies' furnishing establishments" here, to rummage among scarfs and ribbons, and don for the brief hour before cock-crow the valuable stuffs and stuffings that are yet ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 121, November, 1867 • Various

... she beheld her travelling suit draped over the head-board of the bed, and instantly the expression of her face changed. She had forgotten hanging it there. That must have been where the woman went when she disappeared. It was not to rummage the bed at all, but to hastily run through the pockets of her jacket. The girl swiftly crossed the room, and flung coat and skirt onto the bed. She remembered now thrusting the telegram from Farriss into a pocket on the morning of its ...
— The Strange Case of Cavendish • Randall Parrish

... first insight into the character of the mysterious Italian. After my father's death, and the winding up of his affairs, his papers and letters had been put in boxes and locked up in a closet. I one day took it into my head to rummage these papers. There were vast numbers of bills of lading and exchange, insurance papers and the like, all matters of no interest to me; but at last, upon untying a bundle of miscellaneous documents, a small packet fell out which seemed ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 350, December 1844 • Various

... ten miles and a kill in the dark That scared the cock pheasants in Fallowfield Park, And into the worry flew Fan like a shot And snatched the tit-bit that old Rummage had got; Eloop, little Fan with the patch on her back, She broke up the fox with ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, November 25, 1914 • Various

... existed in the fashionable world, a female of rank and property, who was an habitual, expert, and incorrigible thief.—She would frequently sally forth in her carriage, and alighting at the doors of perhaps, half a dozen different tradesmen, rummage over their goods, without mak-ing a purchase, and embrace the opportunity of purloining any portable article that lay in her way. Those tradesmen to whom her thieving propensities were known, used to watch, carefully, her manoeuvres, let her walk off with the spoil, ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan

... vanilla-beans, she would be well satisfied to open her campaign. But as there had been for weeks only one single copper cent and two postage-stamps in the house, that seemed an impossibility. Hereupon an idea seized little Jane, and for several days she was busy in a mysterious rummage. Garrets and closets surrendered their hoards to her; files of old newspapers, old ledgers, old letter-backs, began to accumulate in heaps,—everything but books, for Jane had a religious respect for their recondite lore; she cut the margins off the magazines, and she grew miserly of the very ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 75, January, 1864 • Various

... pleased with them; so, rather, Will the thralls of lane and court. ALFRED LYTTLETON, so keen behind the wicket; Lord KINNAIRD, who once was hot upon the ball, Give our Arabs chance of football and of cricket. And you'll fairly earn the hearty thanks of all; For the young City Children, doomed to rummage In dim alleys foul as Styx, Never else may know the rapture of a "scrummage," Or "a slashing ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98, March 15, 1890 • Various

... been oppressed by the tragedy of Want and Misery, one might have laughed at the farcical, imbecile measures that were taken to relieve it. Several churches held what they called 'Rummage' or 'jumble' sales. They sent ...
— The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists • Robert Tressell

... them stuck in your box, as if to invite all the servants to come and have a rummage, when you go ...
— Glyn Severn's Schooldays • George Manville Fenn

... you, poor thing," said the pilgrim, and wiped the dog's eyes with the flaps of its ears, for it looked as though it had wept. But when the dog heard what the pilgrim said, it understood, for animals understood all languages merely by the tone. It then began to rummage in the rubbish heap. And behold! there lay, between two cabbage leaves, a pomegranate and a piece of white bread. The pilgrim, who was accustomed to all kinds of miracles, praised God, and ate. And when he had eaten, he thanked God the Merciful. ...
— Historical Miniatures • August Strindberg

... noble deeds of mine. I could not remember them at the time in their entirety. I seemed to have done a good many. But I did remember the rummage sale to which I sent all my old clothes, including a coat that had got mixed up with them by accident, and that I believe ...
— The Angel and the Author - and Others • Jerome K. Jerome



Words linked to "Rummage" :   ransacking, rummage sale, smother, fuddle, welter, clutter, muddle, hunting, hunt, mare's nest, jumble, search



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